New sport earns young athlete Alberta award

After a half dozen years of being a competitive swimmer, Jessie Lilly decided to branch out.

And the 17-year-old is rather thrilled that she did. For her triathlon performances, Lilly received a Tom Longboat regional award. She was picked as Alberta’s top Aboriginal amateur female athlete for 2009 after only her first year of competing in triathlons.

Lilly, who lives in Edson, won four out of the five races she entered in her home province last year. In her only out-of-province event, held in Kelowna, she placed second.

Winning a provincial accolade for her new sport is special.

 “It makes me pretty excited to win an award for a sport,” she said. “I’m glad to find something I’m passionate about and pretty decent at.”   

Lilly got into the sport through the urging of a friend.
“I finally got the guts to try it,” she said.  
Before she entered her first event, however, Lilly spent her 2009 March break attending a triathlon camp in Hawaii.

“It was a kick start to my season,” she said.
As for her March break this year, Lilly participated in an elite triathlon camp in Victoria. One of the most important techniques she learned there was how to properly draft on a bike, saving much needed energy.
For now, Lilly is competing in triathlon sprint events. Races start off with a 750-metre swim, followed by a 20-kilometre bike ride and a five-kilometre run.

Eventually Lilly is hoping to compete in triathlon events at the Olympic distances of 1.5 km swim, 40 km bike ride and 10 km run.

“My coach wants me to wait until I’m 20 to start the longer distances,” said Lilly, a Grade 11 student at Parklands High School in Edson.

Though she’s still a newcomer to the sport, Lilly plans on entering triathlons for a long time.

“What I really like about triathlon is it’s something you can do for the rest of your life,” she said.

Lilly has a rigourous weekly training schedule. It entails five 90-minute sessions of swimming, three one hour bike riding sessions, and four one hour running sessions.
“I have a passion for (the sport),” she said.

By winning the Tom Longboat regional award, Lilly was nominated for the award at the  national level. Hockey player Brigette Lacquette, from Mallard, Man., was chosen as the country’s top female athlete. Lacquette was a member of the Canadian women’s under 18 team that captured a silver medal at its World Championships in 2009.

Lilly was content with winning the Alberta award.
“Tom Longboat is one of my idols,” said Lilly, whose father Darcy is Métis.